p. 16 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 26. (6/26/1907)

The Judgment Is Set

That great last court is thus described by the prophet: “I beheld till thrones were placed and One that was Ancient of Days did sit. His raiment was white as snow, and the hair of His head like pure wool; His throne was fiery flames, and the wheels thereof burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him: thousands of thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him; the judgment was set, and the books were opened.” Dan. 7:9, 10.

Description of sublime or more majestic scene was never attempted. The Infinite God, before whom is nothing too great to accomplish, nothing too small to be unnoticed, sits in solemn judgment upon the people of this one rebellious world, on which are being outworked in human character the principles of everlasting weal or wo. The importance to the universe of the decisions of that judgment transcend all human description, for the eternal justice and stability of God’s government is at stake.

Earthly Courts and Their Decisions

There are courts many in session to-day in this country and in the world at large. Police and justice courts, county and superior courts, district, state and federal courts, military, civil, and ecclesiastical courts.

The Consequences of Court Decisions

Many persons have cases pending in these courts, the decisions of which will affect them within the whole range of human probability, from success and worldly wealth to financial ruin and loss of life. Many relatives and friends are also interested in the issue of these courts. What will the decision be? means much to persons and parties.

How Justice Is Defeated

Justice is not always triumphant in these courts. Judges are sometimes prejudiced, purchasable, venal. Jurors may be bought, juries packed; technicalities of law may override equity and right; false witnesses may blind to the truth; pathetic pleas may move jurors to injustice; lawyers may sell their clients. Appeal after appeal may be taken till the heinousness of the crime is forgotten and sympathy for the criminal prevails. Or in civil suits the cost exceeds all damage, and lawyers only have profited. A thousand and one things conspire to defeat justice.

Wanted, Conscience!

Wanted, Conscience!—Mayor Schmitz of San Francisco has been found guilty of “felony—to-wit extortion,” by a jury of his peers. This, it is loudly declared, is a vindication of the law and will have a tremendous influence upon grafters in other large cities. Nothing of the kind. It is exceedingly questionable whether the greater part of San Francisco does not stand with the mayor to the extent of believing that he ought not to be punished. His case will be appealed to higher tribunals, and he may still be acquitted over legal technicalities. It goes without saying that every intelligent man believes him guilty. No one confesses to crime, as did Abraham Ruef and the several supervisors, unless he is guilty. No one can believe that Mayor Schmitz, Mr. Ruef’s bosom friend, is innocent in all these crimes. No one believes that the mayor’s sudden ability to indulge in extravagant expenditure has nothing to do with these graft cases. And yet there are many of the best lawyers who would take his case and the cases of those associated with him and fight for his acquittal by every technicality, twist, and turn which lawyers know to defeat justice and acquit criminals who have proved false to party allegiance and public trust. What is lacking in San Francisco and in all the great cities of America is conscience, principle, instead of policy and expediency. No issue of a trial or series of trials will create conscience or principles. It may make rogues fear for a time, only to plot more cunningly later. God only—the God of the Decalogue—can clean a conscience and supplant by principles of righteousness, expediency, policy, overweening selfishness. But God, the God of the Bible, is forgotten save in name and form.

The Guilt of the Grafters

It is a pretty poor presumption of innocence that some of the San Francisco prosecuted are laying before the greater jury, the people. When an official loudly declares his innocence, one would naturally think that his legal counsel would welcome all evidence, would suppress their constant “objections” to evidence presented by the prosecution, and would not advise their client not to answer plain questions having direct bearing upon the charges against him. The idea of innocence which some of these grafters seem to have is that one is innocent till he is proved guilty. The claim is a legal technicality, not a declaration of fact. The “great Delmas” in defending one of them does not make the innocence of his client the more evident by sneering at his more youthful legal opponent and waxing eloquent over legal technicalities, instead of meeting the charges in a straightforward way. According to all common logic the grafters have unwittingly confessed their guilt.

Sunday Laws and Persecution

By Editor

In our Outlook Department there is a little article from Mr. Bradley of Washington, who is not a Seventh-day Adventist nor a Sabbath-keeper. The title of the article is, “Like a Story of the Dark Ages.” We commend its perusal to the editor of the California Christian Advocate, Mr. Chauncey Dunne, and others, who talk of the beneficence of Sunday laws, and who are endeavoring to make the people of California believe that a Sunday law is not a persecuting law.